Local

We could, because the deal that ended the shutdown this month is good only through Jan. 15, 2014. But U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says he hopes it doesn’t come to that and he suspects it won’t.

“I don’t think so, although there’ve been some local congressmen who’ve said they won’t rule it out. I think that would be a terrible mistake. It was a stupid thing to do. We shouldn’t repeat this stupidity,” he said.

Durbin says he doesn’t want to judge the Republican Party, but he says there’s a group in the House for whom compromise is bad in and of itself, regardless of the issue, and that makes it difficult to legislate.